Wageningen Bioveterinary Research (WBVR), part of Wageningen University & Research, and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) hereby announce a new partnering agreement.

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With support from the European Union’s (EU’s) Horizon 2020 programme, CEPI will provide up to US$12.5 million for vaccine manufacturing, preclinical research, and a phase 1 study to assess the safety, tolerability, and immunogenicity of a single-dose vaccine candidate (RVFV-4s) against Rift Valley fever virus for use in humans. WBVR will lead a consortium of research, manufacturing, and clinical evaluation organisations to undertake this project.

To produce this vaccine candidate, researchers at WBVR have altered the genome of the Rift Valley fever virus in a way that significantly weakens it. This “attenuated” virus will be used as a vaccine to generate a lasting immune response against the disease.

Rift Valley fever vaccines have already been used successfully to protect livestock, but currently none have been licensed for use in humans.

Rift Valley fever virus mainly affects people living in pastoral communities in low-income and middle-income countries. While the virus mostly infects humans through contact with the blood or organs of infected animals, there is a concern that it could also be transmitted from human-to-human by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which could change its epidemiology considerably. In view of the epidemic threat posed by this disease, the WHO has classified it as a priority pathogen in need of urgent R&D investment.

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